= 27d567bc2d48d9f40e9ccc20ea370b15)
cousin_it comments on Morality and International Humanitarian Law - Less Wrong
You are viewing a comment permalink. View the original post to see all comments and the full post content.
= 783df68a0f980790206b9ea87794c5b6)
Loading…= b715d02e85f7b3b4ae65ca3d3e450868)
Subscribe to RSS Feed
Powered by Reddit
= f037147d6e6c911a85753b9abdedda8d)
You are viewing a comment permalink. View the original post to see all comments and the full post content.
Comments (100)
"Covenants without the sword are but words and of no strength to secure a man at all." - Thomas Hobbes
When someone breaks a law, is it really the proper response to go "OMG you broke a LAW!!"? Can't Yglesias call the police or something? I vote for actually examining the moral issues in each particular war without mentioning "laws" that aren't enforced laws but rather arbitrary goalposts in the debate.
Laws are only as good as the effectiveness of the power that enforces them. By that standard, international law is largely a joke.
"War crimes" trials are an extra fillip imposed on the loser by the winner to rub the losers noses in their loserness and to proclaim the winners' own moral superiority. Very little is less moral than the strategic bombing campaign in WW II, but I don't remember any British or American generals or politicians being tried for it.
Do you think recent trials and warrants against ex-Yugoslav, Cambodian, Rwandan and Sudanese leaders have any preventive effect?
Do you think these trials are void of moral content?